What Car? launches marketing campaign for new car buying platform

What Car? has launched a new national marketing campaign to promote its online new car buying platform on Absolute Radio.

The adverts will play across Bauer Media-owned radio network's entire Absolute Radio network, including the Absolute Radio, Absolute Radio 80s, Absolute Radio 90s and Absolute Classic Rock.

Two adverts were launched this month to coincide with the traditional surge in car buying in the new year and will run until the end of March, when the new 21-numberplate will launch.

The new adverts also arrive as What Car? announces the winners of its Car of the Year 2021 Awards, listing the best new cars across 26 vehicle categories from Small Electric Cars to Luxury SUVs.

The winners will be announced across a week-long, entirely digital event which kicks off today (January 11), with the overall winner revealed on January 14.  

Darren Pitt, marketing director for What Car?, said: “Absolute’s audience profile makes it the perfect place to promote What Car? New Car Buying and inform listeners about the wider role our brand plays in the car buying journey now. Today, we not only recommend the best cars on sale following our unrivalled, expert testing processes, but also linking our audience with retailers offering pre-haggled guaranteed deals.”

Kate Hannam, director of sales and commercial partnerships for What Car?, added: “We are determined to give retailers using our service the best possible value for money, and this radio campaign is another way of underlining our commitment to delivering quality in-market leads digitally, helping to circumnavigate the pressures of lockdown.

“The industry demonstrated its resilience in 2020, in particular with its ability to pivot towards digital sales techniques. What Car? New Car Buying boomed during that period, and has demonstrated that it is a highly effective sales tool at all times, and with the added reassurance of a money-back guarantee for any dealership that is locked down.”

Retailers including Ancaster, Ford Retail, Pendragon, Robins & Day, Snows, Vertu Motors, Vindis and Waylands Automotive are currently using What Car?’s New Car Buying lead generation service, which was launched earlier this year.

More than 200 car dealers signed up to What Car?’s New Car Buying online platform on a single day in March last year after retailers were offered three months’ free access to the service amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

In August last year What Car? added a new feature to its New Car Buying platform that allows dealers to sell unregistered, pre-registered and nearly new cars from stock.

The additional functionality was developed during the COVID-19 lockdown period at the request of the 900 retailers already using the platform.